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Woj reported last night that Ainge basically has a backup deal in place for Conley if Kyrie bolts.

Ainge is clearly not on board with the wait and develop the young guys approach you seem to think.

He did this before with his Big three and at a minimum seems open and actively gaming out taking that risk now.

Conley/Smart or Brown/Hayward/AD/Horford plus FA role players can get you to the finals, and that is probably what Ainge is thinking. If Kyrie stays, great, upgrading Conley to Kyrie probably makes you favorites.

1st Horford has a player option so he may not be there. Next how does he get Conley and still have assets for Davis?

Woj reported last night that Ainge basically has a backup deal in place for Conley if Kyrie bolts.

Ainge is clearly not on board with the wait and develop the young guys approach you seem to think.

He did this before with his Big three and at a minimum seems open and actively gaming out taking that risk now.

Conley/Smart or Brown/Hayward/AD/Horford plus FA role players can get you to the finals, and that is probably what Ainge is thinking. If Kyrie stays, great, upgrading Conley to Kyrie probably makes you favorites.

The premise is still the same. Whether it's was said in March or 20 seconds ago. The mins we will not re-sign in Boston becomes public it changes things.

Guess you donít remember AD dad saying they werenít signing in Boston back when all this started itís always been out there your falling into the the trap they( LA media ) trying to put out there donít read to much into it .

If the Lakers are still offering everything, as has been reported, and Griff wants a 3rd team to be involved that thus far has not given in to whatever it is that the Lakers/Pelicans want them to give up as part of a 3 team trade, what leverage can the Pelicans exert over that 3rd team, and what more do the Lakers have to sweeten the pot? What's more than the "EVERYTHING" they're already supposedly offering?

I can't wait until the stories about what actually happened come out after this deal is done. A lot of this doesn't make sense. Has to be about taking on extra salary that would keep Lakers from being free agent player, IMO.

If the Wizards are the 3rd team, that would actually make this understandable. They don't have a GM and might be trying to dump Wall on the Lakers as part of this deal. If I'm the Wizards and you know the Lakers want to flip Beal to the Pelicans to secure AD - insisting they take Wall is exactly what I'd be trying to do. Might be the only chance they'll have to dump him. And I'd understand why the Lakers would resist.

But...

Wall/Davis to Lakers
Beal/Ingram/9/LAL 2021 to Pels
Kuz/Ball/Hart/4 to Wiz

Guess you don’t remember AD dad saying they weren’t signing in Boston back when all this started it’s always been out there your falling into the the trap they( LA media ) trying to put out there don’t read to much into it .

1st Horford has a player option so he may not be there. Next how does he get Conley and still have assets for Davis?

Conley is not going to fetch a kings ransom. A random first and matching salaries will probably do it.

I also don't see Horford getting a major deal at 33 elsewhere. And he has already indicated a desire to sign a smaller, long-term deal to stay with Boston or just opting in. Plus Ainge isn't going to be leaking to Woj if he isn't confident he can't meet the expectation he's setting. It's hard to imagine he doesn't have a path to Conley if this is getting out.

Ainge doesn't seem dissuaded at this point, the Knicks have already offered what can only be deduced as a serious haul since some in the organization are letting it be known they fear another Carmello situation brewing(giving up all their assets to land one big superstar). The Lakers by all reports are not on any major FA's short list. Which pressures LA to do whatever it takes to appease Lebron. As going into 35-year-old Lebron's next season with more one-year guys and people he has demoralized will throw gas on that dumpster fire. And those are just the most public goings-on that we are aware of.

The SI report simply reiterates what was already known months ago, AD, as it stands, will test FA if he is shipped to basically any team not NY and LA, and even then still might.

The newest question is that in lieu of KD's injury, in lieu of that flattening of the competitive balance of the league, in lieu of Toronto on the cusp of winning a championship after the bold risk of trading for Kawhi who wanted to go to the Clippers, what GM's may now feel emboldened that they are an AD away from pulling a Toronto? Or not even an AD, but a difference-maker that they would be willing to throw in longer-term assets for short that the Pels can have incorporated into a multi-team trade?

I take an objective look at this from a wider vantage and I don't see the doom and gloom you assert. I see a team with a lot of leverage given the power player's typically yield and solid offers already on the table that only look to have improved in the last week.

I don't know why people keep ignoring what Tobias Harris and Porzingis both got at the deadline.

KP had an ACL injury, as a big, and got DSJ, filler, and Two Dallas 1st all while having 6 months left on his contract and not being able to play oh and also while in legal trouble.

Harris got 2 1st round picks and filler for 3 months of games.

AD has an entire year year left on his deal. It's absolutely crazy to think we would be getting a good bit better package than KP.

THIS!! If I'm Griff, AD never gets traded to LA or ANYONE in the west until next trade deadline or sooner should they find a way to reach my asking price/value. Even then if someone in east is close, they win.
Meanwhile, take the trade off the market and play him 40 plus mins. until then. Fine his butt should he not play hard. If he gets injuried, SO WHAT? Then you have another yr to play this game. NO WAY does what Rich Paul say make any difference to me. ONLY THE EAST for now.

I would love for AD to not get his way but the Zion era will be amazing and we shouldn't begin it with AD on the team. That's hurting us to hurt him.

The Knicks are definitely out and will not offer the farm now that KD is badly hurt. There's no confidence that they can put a star next to AD anymore. If he walks, the front office is fired on the spot. This is a one-horse race. LA is going to win with much less than their previous offer. There may be a darkhorse team that comes in with late 1sts and a guy like McCollum if LA tries to lowball too much.

Ask why the Rich Paul push this so hard. It is a desperate attempt to get AD to LA NOW.

The Lakers need AD traded to LA, or they run the real risk of not obtaining Davis regardless how badly Davis wants to play there.

If they try to keep the space for AD, the Lakers would waste another year of an aging Lebron AND look bad doing it. The Lakers also lose the ability to add a third max if they sign AD outright. They will also be forced to lose Ingram for nothing if they #Wait4AD; no team is gonna trade for a RFA when the original team cannot afford to match the likely max thrown his way.

If they don't save the space for AD and sign a max player, no amount of desire AD has for the lakers will convince him to sign for less than his market value. When you stack a theoretical contract like that vs the one he could get in Nola, the loss is now reaching $100+ mill. Since this current move is so much about money, it stands to reason he wont take that much of a loss when he can go to other large markets to make comparable revenue with his max contract.

This is a hot new team with a lot of promise. The casual fan will be invigorated. The media will be hype. Zion is a much better personality to have than AD. He will have notoriety and give us popularity.

But look at today. Zion is visiting NOLA for the first time and most people don't even know it. All of the talk is AD. And it is toxic to the franchise and its fan base.

I don't want AD tainting the beginning of the Zion era just for the purpose of hurting AD. I could stomach it for better assets but that won't be the case.

Charles Barkley said this a couple months ago about Anthony Davis and Rich Paul (it still holds): "Remember your agent works for you. You don't work for him. They handled that situation wrong. Anybody that works for me ... they better do whatever I f---ing say or they're fired."